21:42 31 Aug 2007
I’m reading Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs at the moment. It’s an exploration of what Levy calls “raunch culture”, the pornographization of American mainstream culture. One of her points that I think is worth examining is the distinction between sexiness and sexuality.
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23:26 28 Aug 2007.
Updated: 21:46 29 Aug 2007
As you might have heard by now, Atlanta Falcons Quarterback and NFL superstar Michael Vick entered a guilty plea in the federal dogfighting/gambling/racketeering case against him. American public opinion, it’s safe to say, is against him. He was involved in activities that involve brutal cruelty to animals, including electrocuting to death dogs that don’t perform well enough, starving dogs to make them more aggressive in the fights, and variuos other forms of abuse.
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23:17 26 Aug 2007
I came across a story the other day about a store refusing to allow a customer to leave when the customer declined to allow them to check his receipt. The reactions to this story have been interesting, with many people making the claim that the customer was at fault by being unreasonable.
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23:45 24 Aug 2007.
Updated: 23:28 03 Nov 2010
Mixed Martial Arts fighting, in the US especially the United Fighting Championship, has been gaining a lot of popularity recently. Presented here for your edification is an argument against its taking itself too seriously… Viacheslav Datsik
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23:01 19 Aug 2007.
Updated: 22:27 01 Sep 2007
I purchased an iRiver clix 2, the 4 gigabyte model, recently. I wanted a music player with flash-based storage that I could use while running, and also one that could play video (particularly on plane journeys). Naturally, it had to have Ogg Vorbis support, and to be usable as a standard USB storage device.
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16:00 22 Jul 2007
Last night Seth and I had a conversation about how hard it is to think of products that you can be sure will still be available in a couple of years. I brought the topic up in reference to sneakers, because I dislike having to choose new models every couple of years if I’m perfectly happy with the old ones. I’m not talking about refusing to try anything new, just that I’d like to be able to fall back on the old model if none of the new ones are as good.
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18:28 18 Jul 2007
One of my credit cards expired recently, so I was issued a new one. This new one came equipped with an RFID chip. It’s supposed to be a convenience thing, allowing the card to be read without swiping it, but the first thing I thought was “security flaw”.
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23:39 19 Jun 2007.
Updated: 00:45 20 Jun 2007
Which is a shame, because I rather like the stuff. Am probably mildly addicted to it, in fact. But this post makes me aware of a bunch of thinsg I’ve been ignoring about it—primarily the true nature of “crystalline fructose”.
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23:52 18 Jun 2007.
Updated: 00:39 20 Jun 2007
Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine has a good article on what being a gold farmer in World of Warcraft is like. I read the author(Julian Dibbell)’s book on the topic of MMORPG economies, Play Money, last year and liked it. Reading the book, or the article, or Edward Castronova’s piece on Everquest currency years ago, all bring forth a similar feeling: disjointed vertigo.
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23:37 17 May 2007.
Updated: 14:01 18 May 2007
While walking around San Francisco this evening, I considered how the city’s topography gives it a distinct identity—specifically, how that might influence its assimilation (or lack thereof) into a profoundly brand-driven modern capitalist homogeneity.
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23:35 27 Feb 2007.
Updated: 00:43 28 Feb 2007
I’m still thinking about stuff I want to buy, specifically cameras.
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23:40 24 Feb 2007.
Updated: 02:49 25 Feb 2007
One of the key problems with attempting to suppress certain behaviors in a subject population is that you end up introducing corruption into your system of government. I’m really referring to attempts to suppress behaviors that are popular in themselves (drinking alcohol being a classic example). You can’t really enforce demand, and most of the population will know that the proscribed activity goes on all the time behind closed doors.
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23:56 26 Jan 2007.
Updated: 10:23 27 Jan 2007
The time of year makes me consider major purchases, even though I don’t intend to make any major purchases for a while—for one thing, they’re carrots for finishing the second draft. Nevertheless, these are a few of the things I’m considering.
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